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My husband, a man who looks mighty fine in a hat, bemoans Kennedy for
single-handedly killing the hat. It's true, too. By walking down Pennsylvania Avenue that cold January day, NO HAT ON HIS HEAD, Kennedy ended the era of the dress hat for men. One small inauguration parade for man, one giant leap toward sloppiness for mankind.
Neither my husband nor I were even born when Kennedy was president, but we see how it was for men's fashions in those pre-Kennedy days. Even at an afternoon baseball game, the guys were decked out in their finest fedoras. Not that we want to dress up all the time — far from it — but people looked better in pajamas back then than they do in the leisure wear of today.
I remember the first time I flew on a plane, 1976. I was eleven years old and it was a BIG to-do. We laid out our outfits the night before and made sure our shoes were polished and our fingernails clean. While comfort was an issue for the long transcontinental flight, neatness and propriety were even more so. Ripped jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirts were out of the question. All us kids, and my parents too, were dressed in our nearly Sunday best. We weren't the only ones either. The plane was full of people decked out in their finest, ironed attire. Even those folks who looked like they might ordinarily be garbed in a sloppier fashion sucked it up for the fact that they were traveling. Coach class doesn't mean no class.
A couple of weeks ago I flew from Texas to Newark. While I'm not one for ironing, I did lay out my clothes and made sure they were neat and clean for the voyage. That's more than I can say for some of the other passengers. Oh, some of the men were wearing hats alright — filthy, mangy baseball caps topping off their faded t-shirts and holey jeans. I'm not against jeans — I practically live in them myself — but can't people make sure they're hole-free, or at least CLEAN, when going out into the world? Even the people in first class, who obviously can afford a new pair of pants once in a while, were not exempt from looking unkempt.
I may sound like your mother, but I don't see why cleanliness and intentional tidiness is considered so taboo by today's fashion standards. It seems to me just a matter of respect, both for yourself and for your fellow man, to not look as if you just rolled out of bed. I'm all over overalls and t-shirts, but is it too much to ask to try to look nice once in a while?
Bernadette Noll lives in Austin with her
husband Kenny and their 5-month-old daughter Lucy. She is well aware of the fact that every day she sounds a little bit more like her mom.
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